André Maugars
André Maugars (c. 1580 – c. 1645) was a French viola da gamba player. Marin Mersenne described him, along with Nicolas Hotman, as the most excellent French viola da gamba virtuoso, in particular, improviser of diminutions. He is first identified as a musician attached to Henriette Marie de France, and follows her to London after her marriage to Charles I of England in 1625.Ian Spink, "The Musicians of Queen Henrietta-Maria : some notes and references in the English State Papers", Acta Musicologica 36/2/3 (1964), p. 177-182. He stayed there until about 1627 and was probably in the service of James I of England in his court orchestra. After his return, he published a French translation of Francis Bacon's letter ''Advancement of learning''. He worked first as a translator at the French court, later for the Cardinal Richelieu. This gained him in 1630 the office of prior of Saint-Pierre-Eynac in Le Puy-en-Velay. In 1634, he published a translation of another of Bacon's letters, ...
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Viola Da Gamba
The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitch of each of the strings. Frets on the viol are usually made of gut, tied on the fingerboard around the instrument's neck, to enable the performer to stop the strings more cleanly. Frets improve consistency of intonation and lend the stopped notes a tone that better matches the open strings. Viols first appeared in Spain in the mid-to-late 15th century, and were most popular in the Renaissance and